Mock interview questions: practise with real questions and sample answers

Mock interview questions are the questions you practise before the real interview, usually grouped by the competencies employers test: teamwork, problem solving, communication, leadership, adaptability and learning from failure. Practise each out loud with a short, specific example from your own experience, ideally on camera, then check it against what a strong answer shows.

How to run a mock interview

A mock interview works best when it copies the real one. Use the questions below, a timer, and someone or something playing the interviewer: a friend, a careers adviser, or a practice tool. Google described its free Interview Warmup tool on 2 June 2022 as letting you "practice answering questions selected by industry experts", with your answers transcribed by machine learning so you can read them back.

1. Read the job description and list the competencies it asks for. The UK National Careers Service says your answers "should reflect the skills the employer wants" and should be tailored to the job description.
2. For each competency, write one story as bullet points. MIT's careers office suggests you "prepare 3-5 stories by creating a bulleted outline".
3. Answer each question out loud, with a timer running and the camera on.
4. Watch the recording back and check the answer against the right-hand column of the table below.
5. Have your partner ask one follow-up question per answer. The National Careers Service advises being "prepared to answer follow-up questions about the examples you give".

Avoid writing full scripts. MIT warns that memorised stories "may limit your ability to adapt as needed in an interview, and can seem unnatural or disingenuous to an interviewer."

Mock interview questions by competency

Harvard's careers centre names "problem-solving, teamwork, communication, writing skills, and leadership" as examples of the competencies behind behavioural questions. The table covers those and a few more. Questions marked with a source are quoted from it; the rest were written for this page and are not taken from any employer's live question bank.

Google's re:Work guide on structured interviewing says employers often write down "what a poor, borderline, solid, and outstanding answer would cover" for each question. The right-hand column above is roughly what a "solid" answer would cover. MyCareersFuture's leadership guide adds a practical point: "Employers love numbers. They give concrete evidence of your success."

Sample answers

The three answers below are illustrative. They were written for this page, and the details in them are made up. Each follows the STAR shape (situation, task, action, result), which our STAR method guide explains in full.

Teamwork: "Describe how you have positively contributed to a team."

"Last year our team of five had to move our client reports to a new system in a month (situation). I was asked to handle the twelve largest clients (task). I mapped each report's fields first, found three that the new system couldn't produce, and built a workaround with the vendor before the switch-over date. I also wrote a one-page checklist the rest of the team used for their own clients (action). All our reports went out on time in the first month, and two other teams later used the checklist (result)."

The speaker says what they did themselves, and the result is one an interviewer could check.

Learning from failure: "Tell me about a time you made a mistake or failed at something."

"In my first sales role I promised a client a delivery date without checking with the warehouse (situation). The order was a week late and the client was angry (task). I called them myself, explained what happened, and offered a discount my manager approved. Then I set up a short check with the warehouse before I confirm any date (action). The client renewed the next quarter, and I haven't missed a promised date since (result)."

The mistake had a cost, and most of the answer is about how it was fixed.

Motivation: "Why do you want this role, and why now?"

"I've spent three years in customer support, and the part I enjoy most is finding the pattern behind repeat complaints. Your team turns that into product changes, which is the work I want to do next. I also read your write-up on cutting onboarding tickets, and I'd like to work on problems like that."

It is short, and it could only be said to this one company.

Practice interview questions for the start and the end

Two questions come up in almost every interview and deserve their own practice. "Tell me about yourself" usually opens it, and our guide on how to answer "tell me about yourself" gives a formula and examples. "Do you have any questions for us?" usually closes it; see questions to ask at the end of an interview.

The National Careers Service lists a few more to rehearse, such as strengths and weaknesses, and "have you ever failed at a task?". On weaknesses, its advice is to "be honest" and say "how you're working to improve them."

Practising for a recorded or AI interview

If your interview is recorded or run by an AI interviewer, practise on camera with a timer, because you may get one take and a fixed time per answer. Our guides on the one-way video interview and how to prepare for an AI interview cover setup and timing.

ROUND.1 is a hiring marketplace for Hong Kong and Singapore. Its first round is one AI video interview, taken in a web browser with a camera and a microphone, and reused for the other roles the candidate chooses. There is one attempt, and each role is interviewed in one language, English or Mandarin Chinese. The interview is scored competency by competency, each score backed by quotes from the transcript, and accent, pronunciation, grammar and fluency are not scored. The specific examples you prepare for each competency are what that kind of scoring can quote. More facts are on ROUND.1, explained.

Notes for Hong Kong and Singapore

Both governments publish guidance on what an interview should and should not ask, which also tells you what to practise.

In Singapore, TAFEP, the body that promotes fair employment practices, tells employers to "create a list of interview questions that are directly related to the selection criteria" and to consider "competency-based questions that target a specific skill or competency required to perform the job." Its guide to fair interviews gives an example for a project manager role, and the "you should not ask" column covers age, race and religion, marriage, plans for children and disability.

In Hong Kong, the Equal Opportunities Commission's code of practice under the Sex Discrimination Ordinance says interviewers should "only ask questions at job interviews that relate directly to the essential requirements of the job". Where a job involves unsociable hours or a lot of travel, the code says interviewers should discuss whether that suits the candidate objectively, "without questions about marital status, children and domestic obligations". GovHK's job hunting tips say to "prepare and practice your answers to questions commonly asked by interviewers."

Practise in the language of the interview, and practise one or two answers in your second working language if the role may use both.